Love and The Liffey

by Sarah Beth James

  Lily’s POV

  I stood there staring after Adrian as he left, tears starting to fall. This last week with him had been amazing. For the first time since my abuser I could dare to find myself happy, to enjoy the company of another. The city came alive for me as he showed me around. I felt excited to explore more of it with him. Like, when I woke late this morning and found a little love note on my pillow and his credit card, telling me to go shopping and where to meet for lunch. I had spent an hour toying with the idea of spending his money before I actually had decided to buy a few books after assuring myself I would pay him back when I got a job. Although I wasn’t sure what job I could get here in Dublin. I certainly couldn’t go back to England. There was nothing left for me there.

  Had he really paid off my debts and put money in my account? Well, there was a quick way to find out. I dug around in my bag for my bank card and pushed it into the nearest ATM. “Oh my God,” I muttered to myself seeing the balance. I would never have to work again, but I didn’t need his money! Well, technically I did because I was broke and unemployed, but that didn’t mean I was going to accept it. Or his bullshit, he couldn’t buy my affections. I wasn’t his prostitute.

  I caught a taxi back to his apartment using the key he had given me to get inside, the doormen knew me well enough by now to not bother me as I headed up. I hunted out my suitcase and shoved all of my clothes into it. The few extras Adrian bought me soon ended up in a carrier bag tied to the top of it. Making sure I left nothing behind, I ripped a piece of paper from my sketch book leaving him a note, the key and his credit card resting on top of it.

  And then I was gone, disappearing into the afternoon setting sun.

  Adrian’s POV

  A few hours later, my voice hoarse from spending two hours screaming out all my emotions in a sound booth as I tried the new songs before showing them to the band. I had calmed enough to feel guilty about my actions earlier. I sipped a glass of whisky staring into space as Shelly listened to the playback on one of the tracks.

  “It has promise,” she commented.

  I shrugged, “No more or less than anything else we demo’d. This tour is meant to be a teaser for the new album, and we have barely recorded any full tracks. Lost one member of the band, another is leaving soon that we don’t even have time to replace. Our new material is patchy, and the vibe is pretty much the same as what everyone else is putting out. In short, we are fucked up the ass by a giant cactus without any lube! We are gonna have to postpone the tour. We are not ready.”

  Shelly watched him down another three glasses before she spoke. “Okay, so you are stressed about the tour and the music. I get that, but what else is bothering you? Lovers spat with the girl?”

  I sighed. “Oh shut up, ye know nothing.”

  “Uh huh,” Shelly commented, “other than the fact you are in love with her, you went to see her for lunch, and you came back looking like someone set fire to your favourite leather jacket. And you have been drinking nonstop since you got back, which means A: you two had a fight and B: it was probably your fault.”

  “Stop knowing me so fucking well, woman!” I snapped. “Maybe I should fire your ass, so I don’t have to deal with youse anymore!”

  “Try it, you couldn’t tie your shoes without me and Rose. Do you even know what tour dates are coming up? Or what cities are on the list for promo spots after London? Do you even know when the awards are that you are singing your new song at, that you haven’t even written yet?” she asked firmly.

  “God, I will never have a song ready in time that’s good enough.”

  “Does she know that you were friends with her ex yet?”

  “I hope she never has to find that out.”

  Shelly sighed. “She will find out, and it is better you tell her than someone else.”

  “No!” I snapped. “Because then she will have to know everything about it, and I refuse to allow that to happen. To admit my weakness. Not to her, she treats me like I am a person. A real person, not just the half being that’s left.” I ran my hand over my face. “Shit, Shel, I think I’m falling in love with her.”

  “Get the fuck out of here and fix whatever you did; you won’t be any good to me until you do,” Shelly said quietly. “And for God’s sake think about telling her the truth before either of you get any more badly hurt.”

  I kissed her cheek and belted out of there into a taxi. The ride home seemed like torture, I could have walked it, but it just felt too long to wait. I needed to see Lily again, talk to her about all of this. But the apartment was dark when I got home. “Hello?” I called out, nothing. I poked my head into each of the rooms, she was gone as were her things.

  “Fuck.” I sighed, slamming onto the sofa. What could I do now, she could be anywhere? Then I noticed the note on the coffee table. This was not good.

  Mr Sparks,

  I am not your prostitute to pay off and treat however you like. I did not have sex with you for money, or power or position. I had sex with you because you were a kind man, who treated me right. I see now that was a foolish thing to do. You only wanted me as one of your whores hanging onto your every word. Get that filthy money out of my account and get the hell away from me. I want nothing from you! You are just as bad as him!

  Goodbye.

  “Fuck,” I muttered again; I completely screwed this up. Yet again, I was losing the person I loved. A huge part of me wanted to just stay there on the sofa and drink myself into oblivion for a few months, but I knew that wasn’t going to do any good. I had to get to her before she or I did anything stupid.

  I dug out my phone to ring Brad. “Where is she? Can you find her?”

  “Give me an hour.” Brad disconnected the call.

  I almost found myself surprised that he didn’t ask who I meant. Seemed everyone around me other than Lily saw how I felt about her. An hour was too long, I had to start looking anyway. Pulling my jacket back on before heading back out into the rain. Instructing the doorman to call me if she came back. The Liffey was where I always found her, so that would be my starting point. Shame there were countless hotels and holiday lets along its length. And that would only help if she checked into one of them, not just jumped town to escape my dumbass bullshit.

  Lovers walked by hand in hand; people walking their dogs, people heading out to the bars. The streets were busy. I could assume that there was an event at the arena with the volume of people out and about. This isn’t where she would be. Too many people. She would want to be alone. I stood studying the hotels nearby, the rain soaking through my jacket and into my shirt underneath. One caught my eye; didn’t she make a comment last week about it being a fancy place she wanted to sketch? I ran over the conversation in my mind, yes, she liked it a lot. And there was a spa or something there I had joked about taking her to.

  My phone chirped with an address and room number; I was not surprised to see it was the building I was looking at. I stormed up the stairs into the lift to her floor. I banged loudly on the door, so loudly I was almost concerned that security would fetch me out of the building. That would be fun to explain to Shelly if I got arrested. “Lily let me in please. I just want to talk.” I shouted through the door.

  There was a deathly silence behind the door, maybe she wasn’t in there or maybe she was just ignoring me. Then the door crept open revealing her in pj’s, eyes puffy from crying and looking like she was on the way to being nicely drunk. “Can I help you?” she asked coldly.

  “Can I come in?”

  “No.”

  “Please, Lil, I am sorry for earlier. I am just so stressed out with the tour and everything. I didn’t mean to take it out on youse.”

  “That isn’t my problem. I’m just the hooker you paid off.”

  “No, you are fucking well are not! I would never, I could never! How can ye even think that of me? I care for you. More than a little,” I stammered.

  “Yeah, sure that’s why you paid me off and told me to leave.”

  She
went to close the door, but I slammed my foot in it, using the motion to grab her face and kiss her. She tried to push away; I would have let her if she wanted to go. Then, she kissed me back just as passionately as I was. I found myself stumbling into the room with her, as she pulled me in, slamming me against the wall as we kissed. Before breaking away, she demanded, “Is this what you want, is this what you have paid me for?”

  “Gods no, I want ye so fucking much, but only if you want me to. I’m not that kind of guy. I will not sleep with the unwilling. Nor will I ever pay for sex,” I assured her.

  “Then why all the money?” she demanded.

  “Because you needed it and I had it to give.”

  “How can it be so simple? No one just hands people millions of euros for no reason!”

  “I have a reason; I want youse to be okay. If that money is a way to help me be that, so be it.”

  “I don’t need your money, I always survive.” She commented, “Somehow.”

  “I don’t want youse to survive, I want ye to thrive. To be everything you could possibly be, and I hope youse will let me be there while ye become who you always should have been.”

  Lily pulled him closer, kissing him. “I don’t think I can be what you need. There is so little left of me.”

  “I can wait for ye, as long as you need,” I promised, holding her.

  “Do you want to tell me what you are so stressed about? Is it work?”

  “I don’t want to dump all my shit on youse.”

  “I’m asking you to.”

  And so, I did, I sat up with her half the night pouring out everything that was wrong in my tour life and career. All the things that were going wrong. How concerned I was if the tour should even go ahead. And, mostly, stressing over the perfect song. Bless her heart, she just listened to all of it and comforted me through it until we both fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  Chapter 13

  Adrian’s POV

  I woke up alone in the hotel room, on the king size bed, my phone ringing nonstop. As soon as it went to voicemail it cut off to be followed by yet another call. “Fucks sake,” I snapped, grabbing the phone. “What the hell do ye want? It had better be the fucking world ending because I am busy as fuck moron!”

  “Mr Sparks, you are an hour late for your interview,” Rose answered primly, “Shelly says to inform you that if you are not here in twenty minutes, she will call off the entire tour.”

  “Fuck me, woman, can you not get me a reschedule? I have personal shit I am trying to deal with,” I objected. Staring around, looking to see if Lily was in the bathroom, but she was gone. No note, no nothing.

  “Get here, Sparks!” a scream came from over the phone.

  “Crap, okay.” I cut the call off grabbing a fast strip wash before falling into a taxi. Where the hell was that girl? Hadn’t we sorted everything out last night?

  Rose was waiting for me at the door, a change of clothing in her arms in a suit bag. “Shelly says shower and be there in ten minutes, she can’t stall any longer than that.”

  “Have you seen or heard from English?” I asked.

  “Lily is waiting for you inside, I believe,” Rose replied. “Now move!”

  “Inside? How long has she been here?”

  “An hour or so, she turned up when your interview was due to start.”

  “What the hell!” I couldn’t get my head around why she would leave only to be waiting at the studio.

  A fast shower and change and I found myself thrown into the deep end of another dull interview after a slap on the back of the head from Shelly, for being nearly a full foot shorter than me, she had a damn good aim. “Lily’s waiting for you, so behave,” she hissed.

  “How did she get here?” I hissed back.

  “She stole your phone to call me, I agreed with what she needed. She’s been here half the morning making you a gift which, personally, I don’t think you deserve, but that’s her call not mine. Now, move!”

  The interview was rushed, I personally did not care. The same old dull questions as usual, nothing changed from the six interviews I already did this week. The questions were phrased in slightly different ways to before.

  “Dude, seriously, do you have nothing new to ask me?” I snapped. “No I am not gay, yes I have dated guys as well as girls, and non-binary and trans persons as well. I love the person, not the earthly shell. No, I am not gonna tell you if I am dating someone, as youse will just hound them until we are forced to break up. I refuse to allow anyone else I am dating to be chased across town for a photo op. No, I am not secretly married as yet. No, I have fathered no children that I know of. I am thirty-four years old; I am not over the hill so stop asking me about being an elder person in the music business. If Brian May is still going in his seventies, I am sure I will be fine! No, I am not on some diet, yes, I have lost weight, it is called working my ass off at rehearsals not an eating disorder. Have I missed anything? Or can we actually talk about the music just this once instead of ripping apart my personal life which, for the record is personal, so back the fuck off. I am hired for my lyrics and my voice, that is all the public and the press have a right to. My own life will continue to be my own. Excuse me.”

  I slammed out of the interview, watching Shelly roll her eyes, thinking of damage control. Although my outburst had been expected and was justified, I could only imagine how many headlines by tonight would be along the lines of ‘Adrian Sparkes has breakdown on live TV!’.

  “Go get her,” Rose said quietly as I passed, pointing to one of the dressing rooms.

  I stuck my head in the door, and there my girl was. Laying on the sofa with her feet up, drawing a design. “Where have you been? Why did you leave me? I thought youse were gone for good!” I sat on the edge of the sofa, letting her curl herself around me.

  “I’m sorry, I just had an idea and I wanted to see if it would work out for you. You gave me so much, I wanted to work on something for you in return.”

  “You didn’t have to do that; I didn’t do what I did to get anything in return.”

  “I know that Ade, but this is who I am. I pay my debts,” Lily insisted, handing me an envelope.

  I looked at it confused, why would a gift be an envelope? She nodded at me to open it, so confused I did. A memory card and a piece of paper falling into my lap. I opened it up to see lyrics, beautiful amazing mind-blowing lyrics.

  The darkness inside

  an emptiness that consumes

  this hole in my heart that makes me feel

  like I have nothing left to lose.

  A deep abandoned place

  So, lost in the fog

  I need your light to show me the way back

  I didn’t finish reading the whole song, I knew that this was exactly what I had been looking for on the album. “Where did you get this?”

  “I wrote it for you, I know the band’s style, what you tend to sing about. You told me last night what you were looking for as the launch point song, so I tried. I know it kinda sucks, but Shelly helped me do a demo to make it as good as we could. I’m sure you could rewrite it to what you want. Or just throw it away if it’s totally terrible.” Lily’s voice broke on the last word.

  “Terrible!” I exploded. “Youse think this is terrible? Ye spent less than eight hours writing and recording this and you think it is terrible? I thought you told me ye didn’t write lyrics! This is the most amazing song, dear God, I need to call the band in right now so we can work on it! I can just hear the guitar riff we need to bring this out. Some haunting Evanescence type shit. Shelly! Get us a spot in the recording studio right now!”

  Shelly poked her head around the door. “What do you take me for Adrian? The band is set up and waiting for you.”

  “I knew I kept youse around for a reason!” I ignored the rude gesture she did in return. “Wait, demo. Ye sung this too?”

  Lily blushed, “Yeah, but it sucks.”

  “Shut it, English, I love your vocals.” I snapped t
he memory card into my phone, letting the track play. “Oh Lord.” I heard her haunting vocals through the song. “Okay, English, I want the song and I am damn well gonna pay you for it, but I have one condition. Youse record it with us, and duet it with me. If we do this, it is our track together.”

  “But I’m not good enough.”

  “Ye just wrote a song and recorded it faster than most professional artists could. You are more than good enough. I will only take the song if youse duet it on the album.”

  “I don’t want to sing it live,” Lily insisted. “I can’t sing in front of the huge crowds you do; I get stage fright.”

  “How about we just record it for now, and deal with the rest later?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Thank ye for the gift, darling.” I said hugging her, “Now, let’s go choose the music for it with the band, okay?”